Customer Reviews
Stellar - By: Eoin Dunlea, 11 May 2008 
Ignore mbb's review. This is not New Age music. This is ambient music for the 21st century. Simply one of the greatest ambient works of all time. The Stars of the Lid have trumped themselves once again. An essential album for anyone with a serious interestin ambient music.
Excellent Excellent & Excellent - By: Mr. Glenn Dollard, 08 Feb 2008 Before listening to this album I was resigned to the belief that SOTL had peaked with their brilliant album, The Tired Sounds Of. After listening to this album a few times I am happy to hear they have done it again, this album is superb. This albumin my opinion is better overall than the Tired Sounds but tracks like Requiem For Dying Mothers & Mulholland are still probably better than any track on the new album.
In summary, I love this album & after seeing these guys live I can appreciate the talents of Adam & Brian.
beware: not a single beat - By: mbb, 27 Jan 2008 
This sort of music used to be called NEW AGE.
Even though I have been into minimal-experimental-techno-ambient for years & I am usually not afraid of simple things, I must say this is off the line.
Past.
Probably I will use it for live performances of bondage. A good contrast & injection of poetry. Maybe not.
Still too boring.
Soul soaring - By: Donkey Rhubarb, 18 Jan 2008 I'm amazed there haven't been more reviews to this but then again I'm glad, I want to keep this all to myself. Really, this is that good. My spirit isin flight whilst listening to this. Finally a soundtrack to my very being, somebody actually gets it, I am no longer alone, my search is over.
The world spins... - By: Stephen Hardy, 13 Jun 2007 Six years since there last album, with two very fine solo albums, one each from Brian & Adam,in between then & this new double CD release. Worth the wait? Oh yes.
Their last album, `The tired sounds of' has become an album I return to time & again. And Brian's solo album, `When the detail lost its freedom' is without doubt one of my most played & favourite CDs. Adam's `The Dead Texan' is also very fine, though not perhaps as 'personal' as Brian's release. So I was eagerly awaiting this release more than any other from anyone else.
This new album is somehow, well, more refined, confident, assured, whereas `The tired sounds of' was perhaps tentativein that it was the groups first real sortie into new musical realms, using classical instruments as well as thier guitar sounds.
Here they have refined there abilities even more, & their sounds & how to get them, producing a masterpiece.
Another `Tired sounds of? No, although some tracks from both that album & this one would sit comfortably together for sure. The tired sounds of is slower, quieter,I suppose the best way to put it is that that album is, well, tired sounding, asin you just want it all to go away, you just want to be quietin your mind, just go away & leave me alone - that sort of tired sounding.
This music is calming, most definitely, yet somehow uplifting, inspiring, & often very emotive, & it's all done with such subtle brilliance. It is music for this awesome, amazing, spinning world. It's music that says that the world will go on spinning no matter what we do to it while we scurry madly around it. This music is big & magnificent & awesome like our slowly spinning beautiful world. And yet it is also heartfelt, being also about our trials of life as human beings, about our failings towards one another (sendin the clowns, don't bother they're here), about relationships & everything that comes with them.
This music is as cool as a snow leopard, beautiful, awesome, powerful, grand, stately, inspiring, somehow both sad, vulnerable, & yet upliftingin a way that only Stars of the lid can produce with thier sounds.
I have to have my `fix' from it most days. And although I play it so much, I never tire of it, & it has the same effect on me every time. Long after I've heard it the sounds reverb through my mind & soul, having not only heard it but felt it. It is like nothing else & no one else's music sounds like it.
I would give `The tired sounds of' 5 stars, & do love most tracks from it, but there a couple of what I find depressing tracks on that album. There are no depressing tracks here.
I'm sorry, but there is so much naff, bland rubbish out there that just doesn't even come close. Any one who has an ear for art & quality should find this nothing less than impressive. And anyone who cares too much & thinks too much will be comforted by this beautiful music. But we're all different & we are all moved & touched by different music. And we all interprit music & sounds differently, & it makes us think of things differently from one person to the next.
What I really can not understand though is why music such as this, as my good friend put it, music that is a work of art, does not get the air play & recognition it so deserves. As is the case for so many of the other fine artists recording on the Kranky music label. Come on!
Another six years until their next one?
5 big awesome stars.
Oh, & by the way, I have tried to refine this review time & time again, & still feel that I have not said what I want to say!
